It is a color deeper than blood
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: As the rain spills, Ed is constantly reminded of the day he hates himself most for…


**fandom: full metal alchemist  
title: It is a color deeper than blood.  
pairing: roy x ed  
rating: pg-13  
Description - As the rain spills, Ed is constantly reminded of the day he hates himself most for…  
(Rating due to sexual content.)  
**

**Disclaimer - Full Metal Alchemist isn't mine.**

**It is a color deeper than blood.  
by miyamoto yui**

Pitter, patter...pitter, patter…

The world is going to be swept away in floods. All the water in the buildings will be crushed someday by the weight of the clouds of the tear-filled skies. And no one will be able to swim because they'll be too busy gasping for breath even if they've swum all their life.  
As the skies darken of their own accord, it will become harder to navigate yourself through the common scenes that are already embedded in your mind for posterity. Everything, from the trees to the shape of your own fingers, will become altered before your very eyes.

You won't have the chance to breathe.

So, tell me why is that while I stand here on the balcony holding onto the railings that are supporting my entire body's balance, the rest of the world has not stopped? Eccentric, aren't I?

I chuckle to myself, but it dissipates into the blanket of rain that falls before me.

In all the years that I've been 'alive', I've never seen it rain so much before.

I want to sing out my sorrow or make some sort of noise from my tightly closed lips. But nothing will come out of my mouth. Even all my sighs are locked inside of me.  
And so, the silence becomes louder and it becomes distorted with the background of the rain against it. From the bottom of what's left, I feel that my heart has been scraped and eaten clean in small bites with a spoon.

"I hate rain," I mumble to myself while covering my lips with my dirty, worn-out white gloves.

Because of this rain, we haven't be able to move.

I haven't been able to move on.

I keep on thinking and thinking because I can't take a step anywhere without feeling cornered. I keep on coming to the same places. No matter what I do, I keep on coming back to this place that I thought I would get away from. It is an anger and infliction that presses deeply into me.

I turn around to face his direction. He's sleeping on the bed. I watch him as he does so. In his condition, I wonder if it is really called sleep. Even if I can hear the smile in his voice, is there some part of him that hates me as much as I detest myself for the same reason?  
His soul is there, but his body isn't. And I know he is crying even though he doesn't show me that he is.

He keeps on smiling at me and being his older brother, I have to keep smiling back.  
Out of love, these are some of the pathetic appearances we show to our own siblings.

The rain falls even more rapidly and harder behind me. I'm still holding onto the railing. But the tears have started to fall even faster than the water drops of the clouds with their lightning-quick speed.

These are the things I hide deep inside of myself. I lock them up in little chests for no one to ever know because I won't let them rise to the surface and touch my face with their truth.

My little brother can see me.  
But Al must never know…

I push myself from the balcony and I'm heading out the door while he's sleeping quietly. I pass his cold body and I close my mouth before I can let out a gasp.

I hate the rain…I hate the rain…I hate the rain~!  
It reminds me of that day that I lost Mother and that I almost lost you because of my selfishness~!

You keep on telling me it's all right. That as long as we are together, then that is enough. That because we're working towards that goal with one another, there is no room for doubt in your heart.

But I can't read your expressions. I may tell what's on my mind, but I'm not very honest. I'm the first-born. I was supposed to _protect_ you!

Click.

I fly in quiet steps out of the building without anyone knowing that I'm already out of it. There are no people in the streets. Of course, it is the dead of night.

The darkness is my friend. It's helped me many times to slip in and out of myself.

But as I look up to the sky, it pounds on me as if punching me. I know what I did was wrong. I'll live with it for the rest of my life.  
Whether or not Al gets his body back, I will always carry this heavy pain in my heart.

With my hands in fists, my feet run. I don't know where I'm going to, but I just need to get away. I'll be back by dawn and pretend that nothing's happened. That's what I've always done. At home, here, or anywhere.

It will always be the same.

And the same nightmare reoccurs every night. I wake up as if nothing has happened, but ever since that day, only one dream has reoccurred. Even if it's fragmented or changed at some parts, it is always the same.

I see Al going away from me. He is dissolving.  
He's not shouting for me to save him. Because he is brave, he's just watching me with a smile.

And then…  
He'll cry. He'll smile, but he'll be crying and the armor rusts at the sides of his face.

I don't know what to make of it, but even though I want to go to him, there is a thick glass barrier between us. I can't get through.

I can't ever break it!

So, I pound on it until my hands are bleeding. I keep on crying in despair.

"I could stand anything in the entire world, but don't take him away from me! Please…please! Whomever is listening to me!"

Pound pound pound pound!

"Al~! AL~!"

Then, I can hear Al's voice even though I know he can't hear mine:

"There's only so much a blood seal can do, Ni-chan. It can be etched out so easily."

I shook my head and shouted, "That's not true~!"

My blood and yours will never fade…  
but why did you look like we were never meant to be together?

As you're dissolving, I try so hard to consciously open my eyes because I don't want to see him disappear.

So, I refuse to go to sleep! I read. I work. I do anything that will distract me! I'm too scared to sleep! What's good in sleeping anyway?!

I don't want you to disappear!  
Not even for a little bit…

On some alleyway, I slump down against the brick building with my head in my knees.

"I want to be 'normal'. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to hurt him anymore by smiling at him when my ivory tower mask is breaking before the night comes…

…and I want him to have the life he's supposed to have. Even at the cost of mine."

"You really are troublesome, you know that?"

I look up and instantly jump up while drying my eyes.  
"What are you doing here?!" I grumpily ask while standing in my place. I'd be damned even more if I had to be comforted by _him_ of all people.

My pride won't allow it!

But the Colonel's figure seems so strong and tall. The person who usually says, "I don't want to get wet so please give me an umbrella" is actually standing in front of me with a worried expression even though he tries to camouflage this with a harsh voice.

I've never seen him this way before.

It's as if he actually cares…

I'm almost thinking I'm going crazy with all the things I'm thinking and from crying so much that it's making me dizzy. Not eating and not sleeping as much as I should is finally taking its toll on my body, isn't it?  
I'm beginning to see things, aren't I?

But somehow,  
I _want_ to see things this way…

He takes my wrist with his bare hand. He doesn't have his pyrotex gloves on.

"Let go of me!" I shout at him as we're walking down the stone paved lanes of Central City.

No, that isn't what I want to say!

His fingers become even firmer even though I'm not pulling away. I'm watching his back in the rain.

For some reason, I want him to scream at me as he usually does. I want him to scold and burn me with his words as he always does whenever I'm with him.

You continue to say nothing.

His hand slips down into my sleeve. He quickly pulls my glove and we're holding hands down the street.

"Stop treating me like a kid!" I protest as my cheeks burn a deeper shade of already red, red crimson.  
It is a color deeper than blood.

I almost think that the rain will vaporize once it reaches my face…

He leads me into his office. That horrid office that's swallowed bits and pieces of me every time I've come inside of it.  
I wonder if he's collected any of the pieces I've left?

He takes off his jacket, but he doesn't bother to change. Instead, he looks under his desk for a bag. He throws a clean, white shirt at me. "It's my spare. You go and change."

"I don't want to even be here."

"But I want you here. Do you want me to make this an order?"  
I sigh in frustration as I turn my back to him, but I don't move a millimeter.  
"Be back in exactly three minutes or else I'm going to chase after you again."

"Why'd _you_ come after me?" I reply in a water-scalding tone.

"Would you rather have someone else go after you?" He sits in his desk chair.  
"Usually you send someone else to do your dirty work." I chuckle in a mock laugh. "Ah, yes, that's usually me, Colonel."

When he doesn't immediately reply, I take that as my cue to leave.

I am wrong, though.  
Without hesitation, he firmly says in this almost tender voice, "Because you are the best that I have, Edward."

I barely hear the door click behind me. It seems that I've lost myself and all sense of reality when he told me that.

He called me by my name. Not Full Metal.

He recognizes me as Edward somewhere in that perverted and twisted mind of his…

It somehow warms my heart.

I scramble to change in the hallway.  
Even though there's no one there, it still feels weird. There are always people doing their business here. Someone's always walking and bustling about.

Emptiness doesn't suit this hallway.

I open the door and carry my things back into his office. He's turned the lights on, but I don't feel like looking him in the eye and that's exactly what I'm doing right now.

I'm standing there with my back leaning on the door and my wet clothes in my arms. He and I are watching each other very carefully.  
I feel boxed even though he's not physically near me.

I try to brush it off. "It's the shirt, isn't it?"  
"Maybe. I thought you looked good in anything. My hypothesis still holds true."

"Geh." My sudden "I'm so used to you" expression goes back into its serious one.  
I put my folded stack onto an empty space on the floor, but I'm unable to go to him just yet.

"Come here or I'll go there. This is your choice." His hands are folded in contemplation. With the pyrotex gloves missing, it feels surreal.  
I associate him with his gloves. When you put white against any other color, just like red, that is what you will first notice because it's so bright. With these same gloves, I saw a little flame above his fingers.  
They parallel the way he always presents himself to be.

To a kid like me, that kind of power, even though I won't admit it, is awesome and cool.

"Doesn't seem like a choice to me if you're making the options so 'limited'."  
He shakes his head with an amused expression. "I gave you two choices, not a command. There's a difference."

That's the trigger. That's when I break down.  
There's a difference…

"No, there isn't a difference." I point my head downwards so that my bangs go over my face.

Tap…

I want to runaway all over again and then pretend that nothing's happened when I return to Al in the morning. But I can't leave or else he'll follow me.  
He never leaves me alone.

Tap…

He doesn't let me breathe just like the rain that's pouring outside the windows of his office.

Tap…

I hold my hands in fists. I don't want to cry…

Tap…

"There isn't a difference…" I point my head upwards to his face staring down into mine. He's standing in front of me as I shout, "It always looks like I have a choice, but I don't!"

He wraps his arms around me. I try to wriggle free, but I am sobbing. He hugs me even tighter.

"Is this why Al told me you've been slipping out every night? Is this why I always see you trying so hard to act energetic when you're so tired?"

"I hate you~!" I shout as I pound into his chest. "Why are you making me say all these things? Why am I always telling you the truth?! Even the things that I don't tell my own brother?!"

He kisses the top of my wet hair as he runs his fingers through it. He holds onto me with all of his strength.

"Take a deep breath, Ed," he whispers into my ear. "Stop thinking about everything all at once."

"Why? If I don't, then I'll lose more time trying to get his body back~!" I hold onto his shirt as I absorb the rain still stuck onto his body.

"I plan things out more than anyone else you know. I know this more than anyone, but once in a while, you've got to just breathe."  
Then, he paused.  
"This isn't like you. What are you running away from?"

I wouldn't open my mouth. I already did this much damage to myself in front of him. I won't be able to live with this too…

At that moment, he carries me and sits on his desk chair, the one that he always intimidated me from because we were almost at eye-level. Without putting me down, he put me on his lap and held onto me with his fingers pressed onto my back. My knees hit the back of the chair while my hands hold onto his arms.

He wipes my tears with his thumb. "Are you tired like me, Ed?"

"Eh?" I blink as he hugs me with my face touching his shoulder.

"Are you exhausted that there are so many people who look at you as if you know everything and you have to grin at them in this mischievous way to meet their expectations?"

I pull back and look into his face. It's a little older than twenty-nine. The confident person who always makes of fun of me is staring at me so seriously that I consciously have to take a breath.  
I clench onto his arms even more.

Why of all the people is he saying the words I can never say?

"You have to think of only one life, but it is your brother's." He smiled softly, but with a melancholic touch.  
He puts his hand gently on my chin to make sure that I wouldn't turn away from him. "But I have to somehow make up for the lives of countless unknown faces. In the past, in the present, and in the future. Don't act like you know me."

"Then don't act like you own me…" I say as he begins to kiss my neck with his fingers going up the shirt that's filled with his own scent. It even carried the same warmth that was never in the voice of authority that spoke to me when other people were around.

He starts to suck on my chest while he puts his hand into my underwear. "Ah…Taisa…"  
My own voice is unrecognizable. Crying for both of us and the things we said to hide what we would never be able to say to anyone else in words.  
It is all being slowly unwrapped as our bodies tell one another everything.

First-born,  
the youngest state alchemist,  
my metal leg and arm,  
the destroyer of my brother's body,  
a colonel's tool of destruction…

Yet, I am this man's sanctuary as he is mine.

As long as it is for you, I can endure anything, Al…  
But I can no longer live without this person.

I don't want him to be cursed too…  
That everyone I love will be so badly hurt because of me…

The truth was there every time you glanced at me.  
Whenever I looked into your eyes, I always tried to look away because I knew all this already. I gradually began to understand, but I would push all these possibilities away.

I pulled away from everything gracefully so that I could keep the little that I had of myself. The parts that were still recognizable.  
I didn't want anyone to touch me because human contact was too painful.

Even to touch Al was excruciating,  
What more when you watched me with all of your power-hungry determination?

When did I start to push my pain away in order to become closer to you? That was also the time I began to retort with words so that they would intentionally hurt you. When did I start to trust you with my life in order to borrow some of your strength? That was also the time I began to go to faraway places so that I wouldn't have to see you and meet you eye-to-eye.

When did I ever give you my heart?  
Even before all that.

You put me on your desk as you pull off the underwear and lick and kiss my thighs…

It was the day you first looked into my eyes with a resolve that I knew would break me with time.

"AH~!"

I breathe faster as I feel him inside of me, but there was no room to think. His lips kiss mine with their sweet and sour flavor. They kiss me stronger and harder.

Even though I shout out all my protests, you've always known it, haven't you? After all, I believe you can see through everything, especially me.  
I shouted because I wanted to heard. I wanted to hear my own voice because I wanted to confirm that I was still alive.

But silently, at night, I realized that I had lost my voice all these years.

I gave into you because we were equal. You held all the enthusiasm, heartache, and persistence inside of you as I did all this time. With and without words.

And to hear you speak, it makes me so frustrated and happy no matter what you're going to say to me. Some part of the ice inside of my heart melts away once you're finished.

Now, I understand why I don't feel lonely while being with you.

There was no room for silence.  
There was no time to think of feeling uncertainties. Nothing made me ever feel that way even though you put me in the most dangerous of situations.

That's why your words, whatever they may be and in whatever form, fill my heart with such warmth.

Thus, I die and resurrect whenever you talk to me even when I try so hard to hide it.

I just never wanted to admit that I loved you more than yesterday, and even more in the next second…

And you?  
I knew it from the very instant you opened your mouth to speak to me.

As the rain begins to calm down for the dawn to come, I smile at you with sleepy eyes.

It is the first smile I've given in years and you are the first to see it.  
You hold my naked back with your shirt over my shoulders as you press me against your chest.

We're sitting in your office waiting for the noise to come back into the now-empty hallway.

You've regained the treasure that I thought I lost and tried so hard to pretend that I had all the time.

I did…  
It didn't die after all…

I've gotten my voice back.  
And I can hear myself again.

You gently, yet securely tell me, "It's okay. Don't think of anything, but look forward."  
You laugh and it touches my heart. It's so you when you say,

"But sometimes, you've got to look around.

Words are overrated anyway."

**Owari.**

**Author's note: **Oh Kamisama, it's been a long while since I've cried while making a fic. I was crying since page 2 (out of 10). T_T  
This was a fic request by Black Dragon-san. ^_^ (And I get pretty fan art~! XD) I hope that you liked the fic that I made for you! I hope I got all the important points in the three hours I spent on it! * winces *

And to everyone who's reading this, I hope that you enjoyed it as well. I don't think I've made such a piece that literally made my heart ache to the point that I didn't want to finish it because it was so painful to do.  
Maybe it hit close to home. Maybe it brought out all the stuff I'd rather not think about. Nonetheless, I humbly present this angst to you and hope you were touched in some way by it.

I also dedicate this to someone who helped me realize this part of me….

From my heart to yours,  
Miyamoto Yui

Wednesday, April 6, 2005  
2:07 AM


End file.
